


Salvage Rights

by Bianca MarOu (glazedmacguffin)



Series: Unaccounted For: Tales of Lore [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glazedmacguffin/pseuds/Bianca%20MarOu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short account of what happened to Lore when he was beamed aboard the Pakled ship after drifting in space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvage Rights

When Lore's vision came back into focus, there were figures standing over him. Dark, roundish outlines silhouetted by brightness behind them. It was the first real sensation that he had felt in two years. Nearly two years of drifting, and it was the first thought that he had that didn't involve _him_. The way his brother had beamed him out into space. That didn't revolve around what the Omicron Theta colonists had called him. Evil. Evil and stars and that was all there had been for two years.

Now there was a scent; a rank scent that stuck in the lubricants in the back of his throat. It was disgusting, and he wrinkled his nose and turned his head away from it. His vision was readjusting, focusing behind tightly clenched eyes as he had to recalibrate against the sudden harsh light. He shut his mouth, tasting space dust against the roof of it, residue from long forgotten planets.

"He's in good shape. He looks fake . His skin color is wrong. Not human."

"Maybe some race other than human made him."

"I don't know of any that have skin that color."

"This isn't Starfleet's android. I heard Dai Mon Groll talk about him. He helped stop the Borg. He isn't Starfleet's android."

_Starfleet's android?_ Warmth seeped into the mixture that made up his 'blood', thawing it finally. It wasn't crackling in his bioplast as he moved. Borg. What were Borg. He liked the name.

"Ha, he almost looks confused. He makes faces like a human." He could see this man now. His gold eyes mechanically focused on the heavy-set alien as he took a step back. Pakled. No wonder everything smelled like death and decay and rot. They were the galaxy's scum; garbagemen that were worse than Ferengi or Klingon could ever be in mannerisms. And they were thieves on top of that.

Lore's brows rose as he tried to move his arms. He couldn't. He was held down against a table with a set of medical restraints. There it was. Fear. The fear of being dismantled again. The hatred for people that would want to do it. They beamed him right into this.

"He'll bring in a lot of money. Robots are very rare. Too expensive to build and keep running, and if this one was able to keep running in space..." The second man was lingering close. He placed a thick hand against Lore's neck. "This is an old uniform." His voice was oafish, and the other's response of _uh hungh_ was equally moronic.

Lore swallowed down a revolted reaction to the touch, especially as the hand seemed to rub up under his jaw, taking in the texture of his skin. These... things didn't deserve to be touching him. He strained an arm against the restraint, but it had no give. He was held fast in place.

"Get it off of him," the man who had wandered away from the table called. Lore couldn't see him anymore, but he could hear him keenly. He could calculate every footstep. He could tell how much the vile man weighed and what sort of boot he was wearing and that he had a slight leg injury. Probably his knee.

He would make it worse, when he got out.

The one that was closer had a laser scalpel. Loose, sagging ridges overhung shadowed eyes that were trained on the android's body as he carefully removed the uniform. "We should turn him off before we sell him," he dispassionately observed. "He has no damage, though. Some sick person will want him."

"Yeah, the sort that get very lonely. Rich people that get lonely." The other man came around again, collecting the growing pile of scrap cloth by the table and half throwing it at the garbage and laughing at what he seemed to think was a very funny joke. Lore was surprised he even tried. There were elements of refuse everywhere. Nasty creatures, the Pakleds were. But he could move his fingers, and he strained to reach the hinges of generator holding one of his hands down. He didn't speak to them. He rolled his eyes up, away from him, and instead focused on loosing himself.

"It's not very convincing for human skin, is it?" the second said finally, stepping back to examine Soong's handiwork in full. "It is tight, though."

"He is too skinny."

"We will have to turn him over. Look at other side."

"We will have to find his off switch."

_Please don't let these cretins look for my power switch,_ Lore thought with a hard frown. He bucked hard against the examination table at a touch to his foot, though. Sudden, abrupt, and completely uncalled for.

"It's very smooth. Maybe we could sell to someone, or take someone to build more. They take him apart, and figure out how to make girls."

The first grunted disapprovingly. He looked down at Lore with obvious disgust at the idea. "A machine is not as good. Unless you make a machine to cook and clean and take care of children, then you can make girls. Real women can spend all their time on you. Machines would not be as good."

"A shiny woman would be pretty." The Pakled stepped up further close to him, leaning over him. He drew in a breath. "He smells better than girl. We will get a good price."

_That's because all you can smell is yourself,_ Lore thought to himself, leaning his head back as far as he could away and blocking the heinous stench with a thousand other thoughts. These were the first voices that he had heard in two years. This was the first touch, and his skin flinched as if it wanted to crawl off his myomer musculature. He couldn't stand it.

His father had called him perfect, when he was young. He told him that he was special, and that he was the product of a lifetime of work. His father had always looked at him with love. Even when other people were uncertain, and he could hear them whispering behind his back as clearly as he could hear the Pakled's footsteps, he knew he was special to his father. Even when his own mother was veering all the way to the other side of the room to avoid him, and when he filed through designs and schematics laying out on his father's table for 'Data', he knew he was still special. Too special for this... this thing to putting a hand to his chest.

He breathed beneath it, and the Pakled looked with excitement to his friend.

"He has a heartbeat!"

"He what?"

The first returned to the side of the table, and he put his hand on Lore's chest too. Then yanked back just as abruptly. It was wrong to him. Obviously wrong.

_I don't need to justify my existence to you,_ the android thought, suppressing a blatant sneer. It was tough to choose who to hate more, the one that was as repulsed by him, or this other that kept touching him as if he had discovered a shiny new toy. Though he gaped a little in shock as the obese alien attempted to jam a gray finger in his superfluous navel.

"His off switch isn't here."

Hearing a snap, a final give with the medical restraint, Lore yanked his arm free and slammed the man across the face. The Pakled went stumbling back, not even aware quite yet of the streak of torn skin or the blood soaking into his thick shirt quite yet.

The other man started to come at him, but Lore tore himself free, sitting up to grab him by his collar and throw him easily over the table and right into his waiting, bewildered friend.

They both were barely collecting themselves, untangling from a pile in the floor when they looked up to see a silhouetted shape. One holding a laser scalpel that was used to remove the clothes that it was still lacking. One that in the dim shadow over its face smiled a cruel and broken smile. The smile of a man that had drifted two years in space. The smile of a man who was dismantled by the father he believed loved him in favor of a better model. More importantly, it was the smile of a machine that had received just one more reminder of how much he preferred to _not_ be made of flesh and blood.

"Gentlemen, I am afraid that wasn't my off switch. Let's see if I can find yours."


End file.
